Dimestore Cowboy
Back to the Cowboy's Poetry

“You’re just  a dimestore cowboy,” she’d said,

Letting the full weight of all that implied

Hit him, like a volley of purposeful lead

Aimed to see his life’s meaning denied.

For thirty long years he had weathered

Many a long, weary mile;

Keeping his home and outfit together

While pulling his weight with a smile.

He’d taken his lumps, survived bein’ thrown

And stomped by some pretty rank critters;

Over the years, he had come to be known

As a man who could ride without jitters.

Night hawk, wrangler, sometimes head honcho,

He’d worked every job just the same,

Protecting his riders from storms, like a poncho,

They all smiled when recallin’ his name.

He’d ridden’ in country far from his home,

Hung his hat in some pretty strange places,

Tired and beat, he’d continued to roam

And bet on a hand without aces.

His paychecks all went to settlin’ the bills

As obligations had steadily grown;

He looked back with a smile on the various spills

And the bumps, breaks, and bruises he’d known.

But it cut real deep when, late in his life,

After so many miles on the trail,

 “Dimestore cowboy” had dripped from the lips of his wife,

And he wondered, “Just where did I fail?”

But he’d let it roll off, packed his saddlebags, then

Pulled on jeans and snapped up his shirt,

Put on belt, buckle, boots, and hat, like most men

Who are headed to work in the dirt.

He’d pushed it aside, he knew only one choice,

As he boarded his UAL steed,

To the question his friends were all sure to voice:

“You gonna cowboy up, or just lay there and bleed?”